User:Sayaka Kito/sandbox

Chto Delat?(What is to be done?)

Chto Delat? is an artist group founded in early 2003 in St. Petersburg.

Their projects are known for their re-evaluation and re-enactment of the past, present and future of socialism. At the same time, like their avant-garde predecessors, they are also international thinkers, such as Bertolt Brecht and the Situationists, opening their practice to the outside world and reflecting local conditions. They frequently hold exhibitions and seem to be perceived by curators as a "dissident" model of contemporary Russia.

Their early work 'The Builders' (2004-5) was inspired by Viktor Popkov's painting 'The Builders of Blutsk' (1961). They said of Viktor's work, "This is exactly how the painting was read in its time, as an interpretation we would like to return to today. This is exactly how the painting was read in its time, as an interpretation we would like to return to today.

This revival of the old revolutionary art of Chto Delat is at odds with the new cultural "trends" that have contributed to the construction of the corrupt new regime, and with the kitsch new art that merely recycles western trends. As if taking over the unfinished project of the avant-garde, they draw on the non-Stalinist communist past, recalling the constructivism and productivism of theorists such as Alexei Gan and Boris Arvatov.